The cited article reports that the individual occupying the Vatican, referred to as “Pope Leo XIV,” advised priests during a private meeting on February 19, 2026, to “use their brains more and not artificial intelligence [AI] to prepare homilies.” This counsel, framed within a broader emphasis on “knowing the community,” “priestly fraternity,” and “ongoing study,” is presented as a pastoral recommendation. From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, this incident is not a minor pastoral suggestion but a profound symptom of the theological and spiritual bankruptcy of the post-conciliar hierarchy. It reveals a complete substitution of supernatural Catholic principles with a barren, naturalistic humanism, all emanating from an invalid and heretical “papacy.”
The Invalid Source: A Manifest Heretic Cannot Teach
Before addressing the content, the source must be evaluated according to the immutable doctrine of the Church. The individual called “Pope Leo XIV” (Robert Prevost) is, by the very nature of his position and actions, a manifest heretic. St. Robert Bellarmine, the authoritative source on papal defection, teaches: “A manifest heretic, by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head, just as he ceases to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church.” This loss of office is ipso facto, automatic, requiring no formal declaration. Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law confirms: “Every office becomes vacant by the mere fact… if the cleric:… 4. Publicly defects from the Catholic faith.” The public, systematic promotion of modernist errors, religious indifferentism, and the destruction of the liturgy by the conciliar “popes” constitutes a public defection from the faith. Therefore, the speaker is not a valid pope but an antipope, and his instructions hold no magisterial authority. They are, instead, the directives of a false teacher, whose words must be scrutinized and rejected if they deviate from the Faith of all time.
1. The Reduction of Preaching to Naturalistic Technique
The core advice—“use your brains more and not artificial intelligence [AI] to prepare homilies”—is presented as a rejection of a modern tool in favor of a traditional one: human intellect. On the surface, this seems reasonable. However, analyzed through Catholic doctrine, it reveals a devastating naturalism. The homily is not a psychological or sociological lecture; it is the proclamatio Verbi Dei, the proclamation of the Word of God, which must be animated by the Holy Ghost and aimed at the salvation of souls.
The pope’s framework reduces the homily to a human product (“use your brains”), merely contrasting a natural faculty (the brain) with a machine (AI). This is a debate within the realm of natural efficiency, not supernatural efficacy. It entirely omits the essential Catholic elements:
* **The Role of the Holy Ghost:** Preaching is not a natural oratory exercise. It is a ministry of the Word, which must be “in the demonstration of the spirit and power” (1 Cor 2:4). The priest must pray for the Holy Ghost to illuminate his mind and heart, so that his words become “not the word of man, but indeed the word of God” (1 Thess 2:13). The advice contains no mention of prayer for divine inspiration, dependence on grace, or the necessity of being in a state of grace to preach effectively.
* **The Supernatural End:** The homily’s purpose is to nourish the faithful with divine truth, call to repentance, administer the sacraments, and defend doctrine against errors. The article quotes the pope urging priests to “broaden their horizons to reach as many young people as possible” and “know the community.” This is the language of sociological outreach and community management, not of saving souls from eternal damnation. It reflects the modernist error condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici gregis, which reduces religion to a “sentiment” and an “evolution of consciousness,” rather than a supernatural revelation demanding assent.
* **The Obligation to Defend Doctrine:** A true Catholic homily must, at its core, expound and defend the immutable doctrines of the Faith against the errors of the age. The Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX, a definitive condemnation of modernist propositions, lists as an error: “The Church has not the power of defining dogmatically that the religion of the Catholic Church is the only true religion” (Error 21). Today, the “abomination of desolation” standing in the holy place (the conciliar structures) actively promotes religious liberty and dialogue, which are anathema. A homily prepared by a “brain” operating within the parameters set by this antipapal system will, by necessity, dilute or omit the absolute exclusivity of Catholic truth, the necessity of membership in the Church for salvation, and the damning nature of heresy and schism. The advice to “use your brain” within the context of a “community” that likely embraces religious indifference is a recipe for naturalistic, doctrinally compromised preaching.
2. The Omission of the Supernatural: The Gravest Accusation
The analysis must focus on what the article’s reported statements omit, as silence on supernatural matters is the hallmark of the apostasy. The pope’s counsel, as presented, is a masterpiece of naturalistic evasion:
* **No mention of the Sacrifice of the Mass:** The homily is part of the Most Holy Sacrifice. The article says nothing of the Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice, the real presence, or the necessity of offering it with proper intention and reverence. This omission aligns with the post-conciliar reduction of the Mass to a “meal” or “assembly.”
* **No mention of Grace or the State of Grace:** Preaching presupposes the preacher’s own state of grace and his role as a conduit of grace. The pope speaks of “prayer” but reduces it to a vague “remain with the Lord,” disconnecting it from the essential, daily Sacrifice of the Mass and the sacramental life. He does not exhort priests to frequent confession, to guard their faith zealously, or to avoid the contagion of modernist ideas. This is the silence of a man who does not believe in the supernatural economy of grace.
* **No mention of Doctrine or Heresy:** The “ongoing study” recommended is not specified as the study of Thomistic theology, canon law, or the papal encyclicals before 1958. In the conciliar sect, “study” often means modern biblical criticism, sociology, and “dialogue” doctrines. The pope does not command priests to study the Syllabus of Errors, Quas Primas, or the Leonine encyclicals to arm themselves against the errors poisoning their flock. This omission is a deliberate abdication of the Church’s primary duty: to teach all nations to observe all things Christ commanded (Matt 28:20).
* **No mention of the Kingdom of Christ:** Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas, established the feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the secularism that “removed Jesus Christ and His most holy law from… public life.” He wrote that “the hope of lasting peace will not yet shine upon nations as long as individuals and states renounce and do not wish to recognize the reign of our Savior.” The homily, in this true Catholic vision, must proclaim Christ’s rights over individuals, families, and states. The article’s pope speaks only of “community” and “young people,” employing the naturalistic, horizontal language of the world, not the supernatural, vertical language of the Kingship of Christ. This is not an oversight; it is the logical outcome of a hierarchy that has embraced the errors condemned in the Syllabus, particularly Error 77: “In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship.”
3. The Symptom of the Conciliar Apostasy: “Concrete” Speech and the Death of Metaphysics
The priest reporting the event concludes: “Personally, I was happy. We greatly appreciated the pope for a very, very concrete speech.” This phrase is a perfect diagnostic of the modernist disease. “Concrete” here means devoid of metaphysical, supernatural, or dogmatic content. It is speech that deals only with immanent, observable realities: community, fraternity, study, prayer as a vague experience. This is the language of phenomenology and existentialism, imported into the Church and now the native tongue of its false hierarchy.
Pius XI, in Quas Primas, explained the spiritual nature of Christ’s Kingdom: “This kingdom is primarily spiritual and relates mainly to spiritual matters… this kingdom is opposed only to the kingdom of Satan and the powers of darkness – and requires its followers not only to renounce earthly riches and possessions, to be distinguished by modesty of conduct, and to hunger and thirst for justice, but also to deny themselves and carry their cross.” The “concrete” speech of the antipapal audience is the precise antithesis of this. It speaks of “knowing the community” (earthly reality) instead of “denying oneself and carrying the cross” (supernatural reality). It promotes “priestly fraternity” as an end in itself, not as a means to mutual sanctification and the defense of the Faith against modernism. This “concreteness” is the mask of apostasy, hiding the abandonment of the supernatural under a veneer of practical, pastoral concern.
4. The “Fraternity” That Replaces the Faith
The pope’s repeated emphasis on “priestly fraternity” is particularly insidious. True priestly fraternity is rooted in shared faith, shared sacrifice, and shared defense of the same integral Catholic doctrine. In the context of the conciliar sect, which embraces religious liberty, ecumenism, and the evolution of dogma, “fraternity” becomes a purely human bond that deliberately overlooks doctrinal differences. It is the “fraternity” of the abomination of desolation, where priests who believe in transubstantiation and those who see the Eucharist as a symbol are urged to be “together” and share “gratitude.” This is not Catholic fraternity; it is the naturalistic solidarity of a shared profession, a union that directly contradicts the Catholic axiom: “Outside the Church there is no salvation” (Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus). A priest who believes this and a priest who rejects it cannot, in Catholic terms, share genuine sacramental fraternity. The pope’s advice thus fosters a schismatic, humanistic bond that replaces the unity of the Faith.
Conclusion: A Call to Reject the False Church and Return to Tradition
The reported words of “Pope Leo XIV” are not a harmless pastoral tip. They are a concentrated expression of the naturalistic, grace-denying, doctrine-ignoring spirit of the post-conciliar apostasy. The very premise—that a manifest heretic can instruct priests—is a fundamental error. The content—reducing homiletics to human technique (“use your brains”) and community sociology (“know your community”)—is a complete abandonment of the supernatural mission of the priesthood. The omissions—of grace, of the Sacrifice of the Mass, of the duty to defend doctrine, of the Kingship of Christ over all things—are the gravest accusations, proving that the speaker serves not the Church of Christ but the “church of the Antichrist” (cf. St. Pius X’s denunciation of Modernism as “the synthesis of all heresies”).
The only legitimate response for a Catholic is total rejection. As the theological notes on sedevacantism demonstrate, a manifest heretic cannot hold office. Therefore, the structures he occupies are occupied illegitimately. The homilies prepared by priests following his advice, even if they use “brains” and not AI, will be naturalistic, doctrinally weak, and spiritually barren because they flow from an invalid hierarchy and an invalid understanding of the priesthood. The path for faithful priests is not to follow the “concrete” advice of an antipope but to cleave to the immutable Tradition of the Church, to offer the Traditional Latin Mass (the true sacrifice), to teach the doctrines of the pre-1958 Magisterium without compromise, and to form their homilies not by “community analysis” but by the inspired words of Scripture and the unchanging teachings of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. The fire to be rekindled is not one of human enthusiasm but of divine charity, which burns only in the true Church, outside of which there is no salvation.
Source:
Pope tells priests to use their brains, not AI, to write homilies (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 20.02.2026